Critique evening

Last night I attended a 'critique evening' at the South Birmingham Photography Club which I have recently joined. The format is that members take along some of their work on which they would like the opinion of others, including a judge from another club. I took along several prints and three were discussed, as follows.

Red Can

I had taken this shot outside a church in Puerto Real. It was not a staged shot - the beer can really was there! The judge commented on two points. Firstly, he felt that there was too much whitish area at the top of the frame and that cropping part of the top would help. Secondly, he thought that the can could have been placed a little more off-centre, towards the thirds. Other than that, he was quite complimentary.

In the light of the comments, I have re-visited the shot and made some adjustments as shown below.

As can be seen, the can is now on the left hand 'third' and the top has been cropped down. I am more used to seeing the original shot but I think that the revised version is a better composition.

Red and Green

This photograph was taken last year in the old Spanish fishing port of Sancti Petri. Taken originally for a 'colours' project in the Art of Photography course, it shows a red Coca Cola sign and a green parking sign on an old wall. Interestingly, on a recent visit, I noticed that the red sign had gone as had the café to which it belonged. The judges comments on this one were similar to the first shot in respect of the positioning of the red sign, which he felt could be less central. Also, he didn't like the wire which is visible in the bottom right-hand corner and he felt that it was a pity that the shadow cast by the Coke sign had been slightly cut off.

 He thought that I had captured the lovely texture the wall and that, overall, he liked the shot.

In the revised shot, I have done some cropping to place the red sign more to the right and to remove the offending wire. Also, I have increased the contrast to bring out the shadow a little more but there was nothing I could do about the shadow being slightly cut off. There are other things which could be cloned out but I feel that they are part of the story of a very old wall. Again, the revised shot is probably better that the original.

Farewell to La Barrosa

This sunset shot at La Barrosa was part of my Assignment 3 submission for the Landscape course. Once again, the judgement was generally positive and the judge felt that the figure on the right-hand side "made the shot". However, there were two points of criticism. Firstly, he felt that the horizon should not be in the middle of the frame and recommended losing some of the sky. Secondly, and not surprisingly, he was concerned about the lens flare and suggested this be cloned out.

The adjusted shot takes account of both of these criticisms and, I believe, it is much stronger. Whether it bothered me or not, the lens flare was a distraction and drew the eye to the detriment of the other components in the frame. Also, I feel that this composition has a better balance by having the sun more on the left-hand 'third'.

Conclusion

All in all, it was a very useful evening and, although only three of my photographs could be shown in the time available, the comments received were very helpful. Although there were criticisms of each of the photographs, I was pleased that it was felt that they were worth improving. It is always good to listen to a judge discuss an individual photograph, be it ones own or someone elses, in order to better understand those aspects which particularly draw their attention, whether or not they have different views on them.